//Don't Fix Something That Is Not Broken

Hollywood, when will you strive for new things?

It was a hot summer day back on August 31st, 2007—not only for the summertime-heat, but for the angst I was going through getting ready to see my favorite movie’s modern remake of Carpenter’s Halloween. Let us jump back a year or so shall we? In 2005 Rob Zombie (known for his directing debut House of a 1000 Corpses) announced officially that he was going to helm the Hollywood remake of Carpenter’s 1978 Halloween Independent blockbuster. This was a terrible idea, seeing as the 78’ Halloween was a smash hit with nothing wrong with it.

The problem is Hollywood, and you know what they are going to do—they will fill the movie with a ton of violence, unnecessary nudity, and a handful of obscenities. Sure this seems to be Zombie’s calling card, but what made the original a classic was the not-so-violent-and-bloody-vibe that it had, but I’ll get into this a bit later.

Now let us have a look at the five problems with Hollywood today: Greed, Originality/Creativity, Content, Casting, and Respect—in that order. The main problem with Hollywood is that they are greedy black suited monsters. All they want is to make a dollar, by banking off of old successes and remaking them for the modern audience. A great example would be director Gus Van Sants’ remake of the 1960 blockbuster success, Psycho. Casting Vince Vaughn as Norman Bates versus Anthony Perkins as the original—was a major failure according to the majority of critics and audiences.

IMDb.com’s users voted Van Sant’s `98 Psycho a score of 4.6 out of 10 with 14,953 votes, whereas Hitchcock’s original scored an 8.7 out of 10 with 103,401 votes, ranking it in the Top 250 at the #22 spot—that’s impressive. With that in comparison, the remake failed miserably at meeting the expectations of die hard fans—of course most fans of Hitchcock’s Psycho probably boycotted the thought of even green-lighting the project.

Hollywood, in the midst of all their movie remakes and TV adaptations, has a major problem with originality and creativity. Not only do they remake old classics, but they re-hash the same stories over and over. For instance, all of the football movies where the team is down on their luck, and this is happening, and that is happening, and then “WOOO!” they end up winning the state championship after being at the bottom of the food chain in the beginning of the movie. We’ve all seen those films or the typical “boy meets girl—boy loses girl—boy gets girl”.

The problem with the Big Coats, is that they never give the underdog a chance to flourish. A lot the highest rated movies are originals and very distinct from those that fit in the same genre. They do not want to take chances on a movie that has never been seen before, but rather take a chance on one that has already once (or twice) made millions. There are plenty of novels and original screenplays out there—you Hollywood, should use them.

What really bugs a lot of veteran movie goers is today’s content. Some miss out on a potentially good movie just because it is rated R. Language through-out, unnecessary nudity and other obscenities—are what fill some of today’s modern movies and remakes. Take Rob Zombie’s remake of John Carpenter’s Halloween for example, like I said earlier in the opening statement—this movie was full of obscenities. Excessive language, three sexual scenes along with a scene of torture and rape (although this was included in the unrated version of the film, it was still probably viewed by youngsters), and way to much violence involving stabbings and other killings. Now what you had with Carpenter’s original was little if none of that. Everything is implied, not shown—which is what Rob Zombie should have high-lighted in his pre-production stage. They need to go back to the drawing board and realize shock value is not what makes a good movie.

When it comes to casting certain actors or actresses to replace their predecessors however, how can anyone replace the original? Think of it like this: what if they remade Gone With The Wind and found an actress to replace Vivien Leigh as Scarlett O’Hara—a lot of people would be going a-wall yes? And who could replace Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver if they ever thought of revisiting it in the modern-day theater? To be honest, it is like having your favorite musical group replacing several members with new members, including the vocalist. They might as well change the name of the band and their signature sound right? That is what Hollywood should do—come up with new material.

I think one of the main reasons why I hate certain Hollywood remakes, is the disrespect they show towards the beloved originals they are stealing from. A perfect example would have to be 2006’s Disturbia. SPOILER: (If you have not yet seen this movie, you may want to skip this paragraph) In Disturbia, you have a kid that loses his father in a car accident, leaving the teen with a lot of trauma and personal problems. Those problems can easily escalate into the outside world, beyond personal, in his case it does. His teacher makes a rude comment about his father and the teen punches him, landing him under house arrest for the entire summer break. What would you do if you were stuck in your house with a pair of Binoculars? You would spy on your neighbors that’s what. As he does this for a while, certain people start to take notice, like the girl next door (hint: Grace Kelly), who ends up paying him a visit. As they form a friendship and spend some quality time spying on neighbors, they witness what they believe to be a murder—putting them in this cat-and-mouse game to find the truth.

Now, does this seem familiar to anyone? If it does not, go and rent Hitchcock’s Rear Window. You have a man who is confined in a wheelchair with nothing to do but spy on his neighbors—he witnesses a murder, falls in love with Grace Kelly and together they solve the mystery and put the criminal behind bars. What is great about Disturbia however, is that they do a wonderful job updating this “idea”, but what they fail to do is give any mention to Hitchcock’s design—not in the credits nor to the press during interviews, there is no word or mention of Rear Window ever being an influence—which I would call plagiarism.

I am aware that this problem with Hollywood remaking old classics will never stop or even slow down. Occasionally remakes DO turn out good and sometimes surpass their originals. Especially having the advantage of new and improved effects (Peter Jackson’s King Kong anyone? Yeah—the effects were boss). Regardless, I still feel they should stop remaking existing movies and focus more on original stories. There are plenty of talented screenplay writers out there and plenty of original material—they just don’t give it a chance.

Thank God for Independent films.
--Brok Spiker